9 areas targeted in hunt for Peterson

NEWS SERVICESCHICAGO TRIBUNE

Police Monday searched nine "areas of interest" in their effort to find Stacy Peterson, the wife of a Bolingbrook police sergeant who went missing eight days ago, an Illinois State Police spokesman said.

Master Sgt. Louis Gutierrez declined to identify the areas being searched but said all are based on the weeklong missing person investigation led by his agency.

At each site, seven police officers and a canine team, consisting of a handler and cadaver dog, are looking for Stacy, a 23-year-old mother of two young children.

Meanwhile, Cassandra Cales, Stacy's sister, contacted Texas EquuSearch and asked for the national organization's help in looking for Stacy, said Cindy Wisdom, case manager for the nonprofit group founded in 2000 to help authorities find missing persons.

Tim Miller, the group's founder and director, is in the area speaking with Stacy's family and trying to set up a meeting with law-enforcement authorities, Wisdom said. "We don't enter a case unless family or law enforcement contact us, and we don't move forward with a case unless law enforcement agrees to work with us," she added.

Gutierrez said state police had yet to decide whether to bring EquuSearch into the effort. "We have been contacted by them."

Stacy went missing Oct. 28, two days after telling her husband, Sgt. Drew Peterson, 53, that she wanted a divorce, according to Stacy's family members. She is his fourth wife.

Peterson's previous wife, Kathleen Savio, was found drowned in her bathtub in 2004. Her death was ruled accidental, but Will County State's Atty. James Glasgow, who was not in office when that determination was made, is taking another look at the case "with an open mind," said spokesman Charles PELKIE